pin me the yarn of his own adventures. But he insisted upon hearing
my story first; and when I had told it, in the fewest words possible, he
told me his own, which, stripped of his somewhat peculiar modes of
expression, ran somewhat as follows:

"Two days ago," he began, "the news reached here that our soldiers had
crossed the river Yalu; and thereupon the Admiral made up his mind that
the moment had arrived for a further attempt to be made to seal up the
Russian fleet in Port Arthur harbour.

"As you are aware, Togo has for some time been quietly making
preparations for this attempt, the twelve steamers that have been lying
at anchor here having been provided especially for that purpose. You
know also that of those twelve, eight have been prepared in the usual
manner, by placing heavy charges of gun-cotton in their bottoms,
connected with the bridge by electric wires, so that the officer in
command might be able to explode the charges and sink his ship at the
proper moment, while, on top of these charges, the hull of the ship was
converted into a solid rock-like mass by filling her with concrete made
of stone, old railway metals and other iron, and cement. Five of the
ships were also fitted with searchlights, so that we might not again
have to contend with the difficulty of finding the harbour entrance.

"Commander Hayashi, whom I believe you know, was appointed to command
the expedition; and volunteers were called for in the usual way. Of
course I offered myself; and Togo was good enough to appoint me to the
_Totomi Maru_, a small craft of some nineteen hundred tons, under a
splendid fellow named Honda.

"We left here at noon of the 2nd, escorted by the gunboats _Akagi_ and
_Chokai_, the second, third, fourth, and fifth destroyer divisions, and
the ninth, tenth, and fourteenth torpedo-boat flotillas.

"When we started, the weather was everything that could be desired;
there was no wind, and the water was like glass, while, for a wonder,
the air was crystal clear; also there would be a good slice of moon to
light us on our way after sunset. But the weather was too fine to last;
you know how it is in these seas, my dear chap. Toward sunset the
barometer began to fall very rapidly, and about eight o'clock a fresh
south-easterly breeze sprang up quite suddenly; it became hazy, the sea
got up rapidly, and by six bells in the first watch it was blowing hard,
and the weather became so thick that we lost sight of ea